The Patriot Post® · GOP Seeks to Tweak Convention Rules
There seems to be one question on the mind of the conservative blogosphere these days: What will the Republican establishment do with Donald Trump? Take, for example, the tenacious (to be charitable) campaign of John Kasich. Does the establishment see him as the last moderate candidate able to defeat Trump and win in the general election, or do the leaders of the GOP want Kasich to become Trump’s running mate, turning Trump into another establishment man?
Similar questions surround the news that the GOP is looking to change the rules of the Republican National Convention. With Trump’s groundswell of voters, the party apparatus is looking on tweaking procedural rules, tossing the 1,500-page parliamentary handbook guiding the party on U.S. House rules and instead adopting Roberts Rules of Order. The more controversial move is to strike Rule 40 from the proceedings. The rule was put in place back in 2012 to prevent Ron Paul from gaining the nomination by requiring that a candidate win eight states in order for their votes to be counted at the convention, and the political pundits aren’t quite sure why the GOP party leaders want the rule changed.
Reason’s Brian Doherty writes the GOP probably wants to strike the rule so that the GOP could muscle in a conservative candidate, snatching the nomination from Trump’s stubby grasp. Of course, such a move smacks of back-room deals, dirty politics, and it might incite those riots Trump said would be a real shame.
Allahpundit over at Hot Air thinks the GOP leadership has made up its mind: It can mold Trump to do its bidding. He believes the party is tweaking the rules so that its preferred candidate — Donald Trump — wins the nomination and true conservatives cannot launch a last-minute counter-insurgent candidate.
Whatever the outcome, it has become obvious that party structure is flawed — on both sides of the aisle. For example, the Democrat Party seems to be doing a splendid job keeping Bernie Sanders at bay through the use of superdelegates. The question for columnist David Harsanyi isn’t what the party will do. Rather, it’s about what response best upholds the principles of conservatism. His rather contrarian take:
> Voters don’t decide the nominations; delegates do, preferably in smoke-filled rooms where rational decisions about the future of a party can be hashed out. The Republican Party is not a direct democracy. It crafts its own rules, and it can change them. Here are questions that Republican delegates should be asking themselves: Is it worth upsetting a bunch of angry, marginally conservative voters who often have a minor fidelity to the doctrines of your party? Or are you prepared to put your political infrastructure and full weight behind a cartoonish George Wallace-like character who’ll probably inflict more damage than you could ever hope to repair?
The Republican Party faces a watershed moment, as does its voters. If Trump wins the nomination — by hook or by crook — will true lovers of Liberty cast their vote behind the reality television star, or will they take their vote to a third party that better represents their values?